Green tea is one of the most researched and effective natural health remedies around.
It helps prevent cancer, lower cholesterol, balance blood sugar, prevent heart disease, boost your metabolism and prevent liver disease.
But just when you thought the health benefits of green tea couldn’t get any better…
Researchers have discovered it can keep you safe from another gory and deadly health complication — one you may have never heard of even though more than three million people in the U.S. have it…
It’s an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and it occurs when the main blood vessel that delivers blood to your body becomes enlarged. It usually develops slowly. And the scary thing is… you may not experience any symptoms — although some people experience a pulsating feeling near their belly button, or pain in their back, belly or side.
But whether you have symptoms or not, an abdominal aortic aneurysm can cost you your life. If it ruptures, you’ll begin bleeding internally at a rapid pace. And your odds of survival aren’t good — 50 percent of people with an untreated abdominal aortic aneurysm die.
Older men and people who smoke are most at risk for developing this particular type of aneurysm. But it can affect anyone, and it’s very common.
But if you’re an avid green tea drinker, you’re probably not one of those people… because Japanese researchers recently learned that the polyphenols in green tea can help prevent an abdominal aortic aneurysm from forming to begin with.
In their study, Kyoto University researchers treated rats with an enzyme designed to give them an abdominal aortic aneurysm. The researchers also gave polyphenols from green tea to some of these rats.
Amazingly enough, the rats who received the green tea polyphenols were significantly less likely to develop an abdominal aortic aneurysm. These rats also had less inflammation and improved elastin production… which is a big deal since these two factors are essential to the development of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in the first place.
“Considering that abdominal arterial aneurysms are caused by inflammation and the degradation of elastin components in the arterial wall, we thought drinking green tea may show promise for treatment,” said the study’s lead author Shuji Setozaki.
So in case you haven’t gotten the message yet, you should start drinking green tea. It will help your health in countless ways… and may even save you from one of these deadly aneurysms. Even if you’re not high risk for an aneurysm, at the very least, you’ll be supporting the health of every artery in your body. And that’s good for avoiding blood pressure problems.
To benefit, just drink two to three cups of green tea per day. Or, if too much caffeine gives you the jitters, take 100 to 750 mg of decaffeinated green tea extract per day.
Sources:
“Green Tea.” The University of Maryland Medical Center. http://umm.edu. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
“Abdominal aortic aneurysm.” The Mayo Clinic. http://www.mayoclinic.org. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
Shuji Setozaki, et al. “Prevention of abdominal aortic aneurysm progression by oral administration of green tea polyphenol in a rat model.” Journal of Vascular Surgery (2016).
